WordPress 4.7.1 and prior versions are affected by multiple vulnerabilities. A remote attacker could exploit some of these vulnerabilities to take control of an affected website.

Vulnerabilities Addressed

WordPress versions 4.7.1 and earlier are affected by four issues:

The user interface for assigning taxonomy terms in Press, This is shown to users who do not have permissions to use it.

WP_Query is vulnerable to a SQL injection (SQLi) when passing unsafe data. WordPress core is not directly vulnerable to this issue, but we’ve added hardening to prevent plug-ins and themes from accidentally causing a vulnerability.

A cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability was discovered in the posts list table

An unauthenticated privilege escalation vulnerability was discovered in a REST API endpoint.

On February 1, WordPress disclosed an additional vulnerability that is fixed in version 4.7.2.

Recomm­ended Course Of Action

TechCERT encourages users and administrators to review the WordPress Security Release and upgrade to WordPress 4.7.2.